The present embodiments relate to ultrasound transducers. In particular, the present embodiments relate to volume mechanical transducers.
Wobblers are one-dimensional arrays used for scanning a volume. The one-dimensional array is rotated or translated mechanically. Planar scans are performed at different positions of the array. For both transmission and reception, a beamformer with only sufficient channels for a planar scan may be used for acquiring data representing a volume. However, the one-dimensional array may have limited resolution due to fixed focus in elevation.
Other than a wobbler, a breast scanning transducer may include a one-dimensional array mechanically moved to scan a breast. Like the wobbler, the elevation resolution may be less than desired, such as for potentially detecting both low-contrast lesions and micro-calcifications. To detect such lesions and micro-calcifications, the transducer aperture size and coherence are increased, and the element size is decreased.
A fully populated matrix transducer (e.g., two-dimensional array) may increase aperture size and coherence with decreased element size. However, the number of elements greatly increases, resulting in either power dissipating or heat generating transmit electronics in the transducer or an imaging system with a large number of channels. This problem is compounded by each element being used for both transmit and receive operation. The interconnect requirements for fine-pitch transmit and receive elements may be difficult to provide.